Kama Automobile Plant

In the 1960s there was a serious shortage of heavy-payload trucks in the Soviet Union; the output of the Minsk and Kremenchuk automobile plants did not meet the needs of the Soviet economy. The town of Naberezhnye Chelny in Tatarstan, where the Kama and Volga rivers meet, was chosen as the site of a new automobile plant. The first spadefuls of earth were dug on the site in December 1969, and trial products followed in 1974. The plant was designed to produce 150,000 vehicles and 250,000 engines a year. The first series-built KamAZ-5320 trucks, flatbeds with a 10-tonne payload, were completed on 15 February 1976. A tilting cab, the KamAZ-740 V8 diesel engine, modern for its time, and the ability to tow a trailer were all new in the Soviet automotive industry of the day. The base model was followed by the 5410 tractor unit, the 5511 construction tipper, the 53212 and 54112 trucks with increased payload, the 53213 chassis for special equipment, the 55102 agricultural tipper and the 4310 off-road truck. These base models stayed in production until the end of the 20th century, when they were replaced by updated models. At the end of the 1980s the two-axle 5325 and 5415 trucks also went into production. In 1990 the plant was reorganised as a joint-stock company; in April 1993 a major fire destroyed the company's engine plant, which was put back into operation by the end of that year. In the 1980s and 1990s ZMA, a company that grew out of the plant, also built the VAZ-1111 "OKA" city car developed by the Volga Automobile Plant. Today more than 30 models of flatbeds, chassis, tractor units and tippers are in production. Great success has also been achieved in the Dakar Rally: with seven wins, KamAZ is the most successful manufacturer in the truck class.